Influence of School Workplace Condition on Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Public Secondary Schools in Bukoba Rural District in Kagera Region, Tanzania

Abstract

This study sought to examine the influence of school workplace condition on teachers’ job satisfaction in public secondary schools in Bukoba Rural District. It was guided by three research objectives namely: To find out teachers perceptions about the workplace standards to teacher’s job satisfaction in public secondary schools, to determine the contribution of school workplace standards on teachers’ job satisfaction in public secondary schools and the third objective was to identify strategies which can be adopted to improveworkplace standards so as to enhance teachers’ job satisfaction. The study employed a mixed research approach and convergent parallel research design. A total sample size of 100 participants was involved in the study. The participants were sampled through simple random and purposive sampling techniques. Questionnaires and interviews were employed as the methods of data collection. Validity of research instruments was ensured by exposing them to the supervisor and panellists for analysis while questionnaires have a Cronbach’s Alpha correlation coefficient of 0.76 which means the instruments were reliable. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed through descriptive statistics and thematic analysis respectively. The study found that poor workplace condition is experienced in the visited schools and therefore there is low level of job satisfaction among teachers in the visited schools. The results further reveal that poor workplace standards that are characterized with grievances among teachers, hostility among teachers, teachers living away from their spouse, poor relationship between teacher and supervisor, inadequate teacher housing and teachers health safety were reported to have the potential influence so that teachers can work in a healthy manner and hence their level of job satisfaction can increase. The study recommends that there should be effective and efficient policy framework that can motivate education stakeholders to participate in improving school workplace condition for teachers to work harmoniously and therefore may have high level of job satisfaction.